Do you have a personal blog where you write about your family, what's going on in your life, or the fun you had last night with your friends? If you do, did you know you can turn that blog into a successful work at home business? Here's how.

If you're new at blogging, you need to start building a relationship with your readers. The first readers that come to your blog are usually your family and friends. You already have a relationship with them. So how do you go about building a relationship with your readers that you don't know personally? Through your writing, stories, and pictures. As they get to know you, they will begin to trust you (hopefully you're honest ).

The next step is to start writing about the products you already use. Be honest about the products in your writing too. Your readers will know if you're blowing smoke or not. Become an affiliate marketer for the products you use and love so that when you write about them, you can use your affiliate link. Chances are your readers will click on the link and buy the product too.

Once your readers realize they can trust what you have to say about specific products, it's time to move on to the next step which is placing relevant advertisements in your header, sidebar and other places within your blog.

You might be thinking that you don't want to put advertisements on your blog because it will detract visitors and run them off. That may be true, especially if you clutter your blog up with tons of irrelevant advertisements that your readers won't click on anyway. But, there is a strategic way to place ads on your blog and that are relevant to your site and that won't make your blog look like a sales ad page in the newspaper.

A good place to put one or two ads is in the header of your blog. This is the first place your visitors see and are most likely to click when they come to your blog. If the banner represents a company or product you've talked about previously, is professional looking and relevant to your site, your visitors won't mind it being there. And because you've already built a trusting relationship with them, they are more likely to click and buy.

Another place to put a button or banner ad is in the sidebar of your blog. Again, you want this ad to be at the uppermost part of your blog where your visitors will see it right when they come to your site. Most blog readers are scanners and aren't going to be looking around your site all that much, especially if they've been there before.

It's also a good idea to rotate ads according to the seasons and Holidays.

If an ad isn't making any sales for you, remove it. It may take you a few different tries to find what works for you and your blog, but don't give up.

Building your blog into a lucrative business takes some time and doesn't happen overnight, but when you follow the steps above faithfully, you'll soon start making money and have a nice little work at home business built up for yourself.

Tags: build a blog, make money at home, money making blog, work at home blog, work at home business

posted by Chris Simpson